


All That Ever Mattered

by ominousrum



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Hospitalization, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-24 20:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9784973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ominousrum/pseuds/ominousrum
Summary: for my wonderful friend Jen, based on a prompt of "characters losing hope or having their faith in something waiver".





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jenniferjun1per](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenniferjun1per/gifts).



> for my wonderful friend Jen, based on a prompt of "characters losing hope or having their faith in something waiver".

Anna blamed herself. She was the reason he was out that late. She was the reason he had been rushing. She was the reason he went to the farther 24-hour grocery store, rather than the shop on the corner; she had wanted a particular brand of ice cream. Her eyes filled with angry tears as she struggled to calm herself.

She hadn’t had a proper shower in days. Her hair felt lack and greasy, her scalp hurt in spots. It wasn’t typically allowed for Anna to remain there around the clock but Elsa had acted as a buffer and spoke to all the staff for her. Anna appreciated Elsa’s quiet, unwavering strength. Anna had felt hers waver often the last two weeks.

She sometimes saw the sun filtering through the window, glinting off the metal latch, and wondered how many days had passed since she had seen his smile. How many days since his eyes shone with love when they looked at her. How many days would pass until she would feel his arms around her again. The years they had spent together felt so brief; she wasn’t ready to let him go.

When the doctors had spoken to her after the first surgery, she had still been very much in shock. Elsa had asked the questions for her, questions about hows and what ifs and whens. Anna couldn’t recall the words the doctor had used, other than to note words with that many syllables didn’t sound very good. Anna only remembered the doctor’s face and the way she wouldn’t meet Anna’s eyes. Anna felt as though a feather touch would cause her chest to cave in.

Elsa had relayed the information to Anna afterwards. Coma had resonated. Coma sent the chill of fear coursing through her veins. Coma sounded like steady, rhythmic machine-assisted breathing. Coma smelled like antiseptic and linoleum. Coma felt like plastic tubes wrapped along her husband’s arm. Coma was the lump in her throat whenever she looked at him.

Anna ate only what Elsa forced her to, mainly soup from the cafeteria and meal replacement drinks. Occasionally a sandwich from the coffee shop Elsa went to. Elsa watched her eat and made sure she kept drinking from the large litre water bottles she gave her. Elsa instinctively knew Anna wouldn’t make the trips to the water cooler in the hallways.  Anna felt her senses deadened; taste no longer existed, just temperatures.

It was difficult to talk to Kristoff. Anna wanted so desperately to be the Anna he would want to hear, _his Anna_. The Anna full of laughter and silliness and bravery and song. The Anna who would ask him endless questions in the minutes before sleep overtook him. The Anna he would call when he was out of town just to hear her voice. Still she felt she needed to try. That she had to push herself to reach out to him, to find him in the darkness of his mind and bring him into the light.

Anna’s hands rarely left Kristoff, whether they lay on his head or his shoulder or wrapped around his strong hands. Hands that stayed limp no matter how much she wanted them to move. When Anna sometimes fell into uneasy sleep she would dream Kristoff had moved – a slight twitch, his head leaning in a different direction. Anna would jolt awake. “Kristoff?”, his name a prayer on her lips. Tears fell silently from her eyes, her mind adrift in despair.

Elsa drove Anna home one day insisting she shower in a proper shower and to gather supplies; clothes, books, a neck pillow. “What if he wakes up and I’m not there?” Anna had managed to speak, the words covering her tongue like a blanket. Anna fought to send away the voice in her head that kept repeating _What if he never wakes up?_ It echoed around the walls of the shower and swirled around the drain as she pulled at her hair, beating her small fists into the tile.

Back at the hospital Anna steadied herself to step foot inside his room. Kristoff. Her strength, her heart, her soft place to fall. Where was he? This figure in the bed before her couldn’t be him. This figure was dissolving into nothing, into the ground, and she was powerless to stop it. She sat down numbly.

“Kristoff.” Anna began, surprised at the weakness in her voice. “I’m back. I was only gone for a little while, though.” She forced a smile though she wasn’t sure for whose benefit. “I’m sorry I haven’t been talking to you more, I just- I want to be strong and I want to tell you stories or read to you or tell you about all the things I love about you but the truth is I’m so scared. I’ve never been this terrified and I feel like it’s all I can do to keep from falling apart completely.” Anna let her head rest on Kristoff’s chest, her arm across him. “I can’t imagine my life without you. Every day I can’t hear you or look into your eyes, you’re slipping further and further away from me.”

Tears pooled under her cheek and into her nose. She fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat. The sound was her home. She dreamt of waves crashing against jagged rocks, of breaths like swallowing broken glass, of the absence of everything that had ever existed. Anna sensed a movement beneath her, her eyes flying open, panic bubbling in her throat.

Kristoff’s hand rested warm and pulsing on her arm. She stared at it, unblinking, her mouth bone dry. Anna inhaled and rose her head a fraction of an inch. Kristoff’s scruffy chin pressed against her hair, the tiny hairs of his beard poking through her damp strands. Slowly, so deliberately, Anna moved to look up into his face. His hand squeezed her arm gently. Anna let out a sob as her eyes met his. Surely this was all still a dream.

“Anna.” Kristoff’s voice was thick with emotion, inhaling as though the very air around him was her.

It was the most beautiful sound Anna had ever heard.


End file.
